Put these Emperors and General chaps on ice, and you’d have them piping small at once. He was drinking a glass of barleywater, when he heard the waiter at the next table say to a member: “So it says, Sir.”
“Good God!” said the member, starting up.
Soames forgot his manners.
“What does it say?”
“The Germans have invaded Belgium, Sir.”
Soames put down his glass.
“Who told you that?”
“It’s on the tape, Sir.”
Soames emitted a sound that might have come from his very boots–so deep it was. He must think. But you couldn’t tell what you were thinking in this place.
“My bill,” he said.
When it came, he gave the waiter a shilling against club rules and the habit of a lifetime; for he had an obscure feeling that the fellow had done something unique to him. Then with a sudden homing instinct, he took a cab to Paddington, and all the way in the train read the evening paper, or sat staring out of the carriage window.
He said nothing when he got home–nothing whatever to anybody of what he had heard–the whole of him absorbed in a sort of silent and awful adjustment. That fellow Grey–a steady chap, best of the bunch–must be making his speech to the House by now. What was he saying? And how were they taking it? He got into his punt and sat there listening to the wood-pigeons, in the leafy peace of the bright day. He didn’t want a soul near him. England! They said the fleet was ready. His mind didn’t seem able to get further than that. To be on water gave him queer consolation, as if his faith in the fleet would glide with that water down to the sea whereon the pride and the protection of England lay. He put his hand down and the water flowed green-tinged through his opened fingers. By George! There went that kingfisher–hadn’t seen him for weeks–flash of blue among the reeds. He wouldn’t be that fellow Grey for something. They said he was a fisherman and liked birds. What was he saying to them in there under Big Ben? The chap had always been a gentleman, could he say anything but that England would stand by her word? And for the second time Soames uttered a sound which seemed to travel up from the very tips of his toes. He didn’t see what was to be done except agree with that. And what then? All this green peace, every home throughout the land, and stocks and shares–falling, falling! And old Uncle Timothy–ninety-four! He would have to see that they kept it from the old chap. Luckily no newspaper had come into the “Nook” since Aunt Hester died; reading about the House of Lords in 1910 had so upset Timothy, that he had given up taking even The Times.
‘And my pictures!’ thought Soames. Yes, and Fleur’s governess–a German, Fleur having always spoken French with her mother. Annette would want to get rid of her, he wouldn’t be surprised. And what would become of her–nobody would want a German, if there were war. A dragon-fly flew past. Soames watched it with an ache, dumb and resentful, deep within him. A beautiful summer, fine and hot, and they couldn’t leave it alone, but must kick up this devil’s tattoo, all over the world. This thing might–might come to be anything before it was over. He got up and slowly punted himself across. From there he could see the church. He never went to it, but he supposed it meant something. And now all over Europe they were going to blow each other to bits. What would the parsons say? Nothing–he shouldn’t wonder–they were a funny lot. Seven o’clock! It must be over by now in the House of Commons. And he punted himself slowly back. The scent of lime blossom and of meadow-sweet, the scent of sweetbriar and of honeysuckle, yes, and the scent of grass beginning to cool, drifted and clung. He didn’t want to leave the water, but it was getting damp.
The mothers of the boys going off to the war out there; young chaps–conscripts–Russia and Austria, Germany and France–and not one knowing or caring a dump about it. A pretty how-de-do! There’d be a lot of volunteering here–if–if–! Only he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell what use England could be except at sea.
He got out of the punt and walked slowly up past the house to his front gate. Heat was over, light paling, stars peering through, the air smelled a little of dust. Soames stood like some pelican awaiting it knew not what. A motor-cycle came sputtering from the direction of Reading. The rider, in dusty overalls, flung words at him:
“Pawlyment! We’re goin’ in!” and sputtered past. Soames stretched out a hand. So might a blind man have moved.
Going in? With little food inside and the stars above him, all the imaginative power, which as a rule he starved, turned active, clutched and groped. Scattered, scuttling images of war came flying across the screen of his consciousness like so many wild geese over the sand, over the sea, out of the darkness into the darkness of a layman’s mind; a layman who had thought in terms of peace all his days, and his days many. What a thing to happen to one at sixty! They might have waited till he was like old Timothy. Anxiety! That was it, anxiety. Kitchener was over from Egypt, they said. That was something. A grim-looking chap, with his eyes fixed beyond you like a lion’s at the Zoo; but he’d always come through. Soames remembered, suddenly, his sensations during the black week of the Boer war–potty little affair, compared with this. And there was old Roberts–too old, he supposed.
‘But perhaps,’ he thought, ‘we shan’t have to fight on land.’ Besides, who knew? The Germans might come to their senses yet, when they heard England was going in. There was Russia, she had more millions than all the rest put together–Steam-roller, they called her; but had she the steam? Japan had beaten her.
‘Well!’ and the thought gave him the queerest feeling, proud and miserable: ‘If we begin, we shall hold on.’ There was something at once terrible to him and deeply satisfying about that instinctive knowledge. They’d be singing “Rule Britannia” everywhere to-night–he shouldn’t wonder. People didn’t THINK–a little-headed lot!
The stars burned through a sky growing blue-dark. All over Europe men and guns moving–all over the seas ships tearing along. And this silence–this hush before the storm. That couldn’t last. No; there they were already–singing back there along the road–drunk, he should say. Tune–words–he didn’t know them–vulgar stuff:

“It’s a long long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long, long way to go…
Good-bye, Piccadilly, Farewell, Leicester Square!
It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,
And my heart’s right there!”

What had that to do with it–he should like to know? They were cheering now. Some beanfeast or other had got the news–common people! But–common or not, tonight all was England, England! Well, he must go indoors.

2

Silence, as of one stricken by decision, come to instinctively rather than by will, weighed on Soames that night and all next day. He read ‘that chap Grey’s’ speech and, in conspiracy with his country, waited for what he felt would never come: an answer to the ultimatum sent. The Germans had tasted of force, and would never go back on their invasion of Belgium.
In the afternoon he could neither bear his own gloom nor the excitement of Annette, and, walking to the station, he took a train to Town. The streets seemed full and to get fuller every minute. He sat down late, at the Connoisseurs’ Club, to dine. When he had finished a meal which seemed to stick in his gizzard, he went downstairs. From his seat in the window he could see St. James’ Street, and the people eddying down it towards the centre of the country’s life. He sat there practically alone. At eleven–they said–the ultimatum would expire. In this quiet room, where the furniture and wall-decorations had been accumulated for men of taste throughout a century of peace, was the reality of life as he had known it, the reality of Victorian and Edwardian England. The Boer wars, and all those other little wars, Ashanti, Afghan, Soudan, expeditionary adventures, professional affairs far away, had hardly ruffled the minds of Connoisseurs. One had walked and talked upon one’s normal way, just conscious of their disagreeable necessity, and their stimulation at breakfast time, like a pinch of Glauber’s salts. But this great thing–why, it had united even the politicians, so he had read in the paper that morning. And there came into his mind Lewis Carroll’s rhyme:

“And then came down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
It frightened both the heroes so
They quite forgot their quarrel.”

He got up and moved, restless, into the hall. All there was of connoisseur in the club was gathered round the tape–some half-dozen members, none of whom he knew. Soames stood a little apart. Somebody turned and spoke to him. A shrinking from his fellows, accentuated in Soames’ emotional moments, sent a shiver down his spine. He couldn’t stay here and have chaps babbling. Answering curtly, he got his hat and went out. In the crowd he’d be alone, and he moved with it down Pall Mall towards Whitehall. Thicker every moment, it was a curious blend of stillness and excitement. Down Cockspur Street into Whitehall he was slowly swept, till at the mouth of Downing Street the crowd became solidity itself, and there was no moving. Ten minutes to the hour!
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